siren song
by kay-emm-gee
Summary: When Bellamy gets captured by the Mountain Men, he knows that physical torture won't cause him crack. What he doesn't know is that his captors rely on an entirely different sort of torment. Or where the Mountain Men use Clarke's voice to break him.
1. prometheus

_I posted this as an idea on tumblr and then I couldn't not write about it. Also, a bit inspired by THG._

* * *

Bellamy understood the Grounders.

_Spears through chests for invading their territory. _

_A Trojan horse sent with sickness to weaken their enemies' bodies before an attack._

_Fingernails pulled out and skin flayed to extract information from a captive._

_Blood must have blood. _

Bellamy understood the physicality of their existence because the ground, to him and to them, was all about corporeality: gashes, bruises, sprained ankles, broken limbs. It was feeling the rain on your face and the bark under your hands and the leaves against your shoulders. It was cold air and wet dirt and hard rock. It was air burning in your lungs as you ran for your life, sticky blood between your hands as you hoped that a friend wouldn't die or that an enemy would.

The Mountain Men couldn't feel those things though, not without risking death. No, to them the ground meant something much different. It was the thing they couldn't have but desperately wanted, the _there-right-there_ thing they could never quite attain. They were all Tantalus, standing between a pool of water and a tree branch that were always out of reach. Something like that preyed on your thoughts, until it became the only thing in your existence. For the Mountain Men, the ground was a trick your mind played on you: _how bad do you want it?_

They wanted it bad enough to keep 47 minors captive, to poke at their veins and drill into their bone marrow, sucking their bodies dry. They wanted it bad enough to string Bellamy up and lash him, cut him, shock him, in hopes he would provide them with more bodies to exsanguinate.

Bellamy just laughed through the pain, ending every gasping scream in a dark chuckle, because this—the brutal physical torture—it wasn't anything he hadn't seen before. The ground and its people had already tried to use physicality against him many times and had failed. What made the Mountain Men think they could do any differently?

Except too late Bellamy realized what the ground meant to the Mountain Men, that it wasn't physicality, but mentality. The ground played tricks on the minds of the men in the mountain, so they played tricks on the minds of the children of the ground and sky.

* * *

The first time he heard her voice, he thought help had arrived. He heard her call out names, ending with his own. As he strained against the chains keeping him upright, he called back, trying to catch her attention, guards be damned because if she was this far in, they already knew she was here. Her voice grew more and more frantic, screaming his name, with him yelling back at her, pulling against his bindings so hard they dug into his wrists, slicing the skin open. Blood trickled down his arm, and her voice trickled away, fading with defeat. Bellamy still screamed, terrified he would be left behind, that she would leave him behind (_it's worth the risk_).

* * *

It was days later when he heard her for a second time. He had been returned to his cell, back and chest burning from the latest injuries inflicted by his captors, eyes stinging with tears held back for too long. As he lay curled up on the cold concrete floor, her muffled whisper from behind the wall to his right caught his attention: _what did you do to them?_ Bellamy squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting to listen, because hearing her voice meant that she had been caught. The dreaded question came again, though, a bit louder and more distraught: _what did you do to them?_ Louder and louder, she cried: _WHAT DID YOU DO TO THEM? _

Then she got quiet, deathly so, before whispering: _what did you do to him?_

At that, he slammed his fist against the wall and yelled her name, letting her know he was still alive and that she just had to hold on, that their people would come for them again, that he would find a way to get them out.

His promises were met with silence.

The minutes dragged on as he heard nothing more. Then her whisper came again, this time from behind the opposite wall: _what did you do to him._ Louder from another wall. _Please let me see him._ Then from the ceiling. _Just tell me if he's alive._ Then from behind the door. _Please don't hurt him._ Her voice grew louder and louder, on repeat, the sentences blending into each other until the individual words were indistinguishable, instead becoming just a scared, angry, desperate, hum of her very, very familiar tone. He pressed his hands to his ears, the melancholy melody of her voice lancing through him with as much pain as the whip, knife, or prod. Finally, he screamed, screamed, screamed until his throat felt like it was bleeding, just to drown her out. It wasn't enough, and he passed out with her pleading voice still tormenting him.

* * *

The third time he heard her, she was the one screaming. He was in chains again, being strapped in for another round with his captors. He knew her cries were not real; he had figured it out after the incident in his cell. Yet, when heard her scream like that, it tugged as his insides, an aching pull, like they were being ripped out right through his scarred, battered skin. And then they almost were, as a knife sliced across his stomach, making shallow cut after shallow cut.

He laughed at the irony, because he had always thought Prometheus brave for trying to be a hero to mankind.

_And look at the thanks he got_.

* * *

Soon Bellamy lost track of how many times he heard her. She cried, she whispered, she yelled, she screamed on an endless loop. In some moments her voice was electricity itself (_run, Bellamy!_). Other times it was a dead, still void (_you should go_). Memories blended into the manipulation so seamlessly that he no longer knew if the Mountain Men were still torturing him, or if he was just torturing himself.

* * *

He almost laughed when the hallucination appeared because how the _hell_ had the Mountain Men managed that one. Her face appeared outside his cage, muddy yellow hair framing bloody, bruised pale skin and sad blue eyes, all fragmented into small squares by the metal mesh. She whispered his name in that same desperate voice the Mountain Men had been playing for him (_Bellamy, we've got you_). He cringed away from the sound, not caring if his captors saw him in pain, because there was nothing left to hide from them. They knew all of his secrets now (_her_).

Her voice called out again (_Octavia, he's over here – Lincoln, get the cage open, hurry!_), and he pressed his hands to his ears, hissing out pleas for it to stop. When hands tugged on his limbs, he kicked out, trying to fight the enemy off. She begged with him: _Bellamy, stop, we're here to help_. He cursed at them, still fighting, but he was tired, oh so tired. So, when two bodies propped him up on either side, he gave in. He let them drag him along, trailing behind the torturous sound of her, allowing himself to drown in it.

Then there were so many more sounds, loud shouts and clanging clashes, rolling thunder and sharp shots. Still, above it all, he heard her (_he's not well – we've got to get him out of here – follow me – Bellamy, you hold on okay – we're almost there – mom, we need you, he needs you)_. With the background noise fading, and she was all he heard again, when she whispered in his ear (_you stay with us, you stay with Octavia, you stay with me, we cannot lose you_) he yelled out, thrashing against the hands holding him down, because it hurt, hearing her hurt, and he had surpassed his limit for pain of that sort long ago.

He closed his eyes and surrendered. The Mountain Men had won their game.


	2. odysseus

For weeks he couldn't be around her. It was hard, because their camp wasn't all that large. There was the accidental run-in at the mess hall, or the inevitable meeting in the medbay when he needed a cut stitched up. He'd hear her—a sentence, a laugh, a sigh—and he'd squeeze his eyes shut, counting down until the pain in his chest and the ringing in his head subsided to a dull thudding ache. It never went away, because she was everywhere; it just became more bearable.

It was strange, because he no longer knew what she really sounded like. He could remember whispers from days long past, or tremble through remnants of fabricated screams. Any sound he heard from her now was interrupted by the static of others' voices or sounds from camp, because of the distance he kept. Every day the memories faded, and her true sound grew fainter.

The absence of her real voice started to claw at him, gnawing a hole in his belly. _The fucking irony_. He wondered if Prometheus ever missed the eagle after being freed. How do you go on living without something that made you feel so much, even if that thing was also agony?

So he started lingering when she was near, trying to steel himself through the pain. He would grit his teeth and force his eyes open: _just a second longer this time_. It didn't matter much, because she seemed to slip away as soon as she realized he was near. Not surprising, given his recent behavior.

Bellamy had never been one to run from a challenge though, which is how he ended up in her tent late one night. Facing the door, he sat on the ground, leaning up against her bed, waiting for her. She startled when she entered and saw him but stayed silent. He closed his eyes and listened to her undress and slip onto the cot behind him, waiting for her to settle.

_Talk to me_, he said.

And she did. She spoke about her day, about her mother's day, about her yesterday, about her tomorrow. She spoke about their plans for the medbay, about the negotiations with the Grounders. She spoke of her regrets and her hopes, her anger and her despair. She spoke about how much she mourned Finn and worried for Raven and missed him.

She spoke, and he listened, each word pain and ecstasy all at once. He dug his hands into the tent floor, pushing through the flimsy fabric to the wet dirt underneath. Clutching at it, he pressed his back against the bed pole, wood striking his spine. Binding himself there with invisible, needy ropes, he absorbed her soft, bright sound, determined to burn the pain of corrupted memories away with her real melody.

He was Odysseus, strapped to a wayward ship, and she was the siren song, alluring and pure, finally calling him home.


End file.
